Owen’s first birthday is five days away; that is unbelievable. I can’t even fathom how this year has gone by so quickly. There are days though where I wasn’t even sure if I was going to make it though too!

Much to my husband’s chagrin, I’ve been opening the windows and enjoying the couple cool days and nights we’ve had recently. Fall is almost here! I can smell it in the air. Here’s a few pictures of the last three falls with Miles. This year we’ll have Owen digging in the wheat table at Goebel’s Farm with his brother and going down the slide! He made a brief appearance with his first fall but at just a few weeks old didn’t enjoy it too much!

Owen is in there, promise. His first trip to a pumpkin patch. Fall 2014

This this winter, 2014/2015, is Owen’s first and our first in our new home! (And yes, Miles has worn the same winter coat for three years in a row, a hand me down no less! What can I see, he’s a little kid!)

Miles snuggling with his MeMe. This was the summer of 2012. We don’t get to see my parents very often in person. But they are visiting next week to meet Owen and we’re looking forward to it a lot. I am sure Miles can’t wait to tell them all about school and his train sets and show off his bedroom.

For this “Throwback Thursday” edition, I’m going all the way back to 2009, which occasionally seems like yesterday but often feels like a million years ago.

My best friend Raymond and I got silly and mixed it up with some little kids at the bumper car rink at a town festival.

Those were very different times – pre-marriage, pre-kids. Raymond and his wife Tina recently welcomed their first child into the world, a little girl they named Hattie. She was born just about two weeks before Owen came into ours.

It is unlikely that I would have the great life I have today without all of Ray’s support and encouragement over the years. Actually, impossible, considering he was the one who told me I needed to ask Abbey out in the first place. He also helped me come up with my famous (infamous?) prosposal scheme.

Raymond and I have always had so many things in common. We even share the same birthday! One of the things we both talked about even then was that we’d like to have families of our own someday.

In your late 20s that all seems so far away. But I’m so happy that we both have kids and families. We frequently tell each other “you are living the dream.” Even though we live a thousand miles away from each other, I’m still proud to call him my best friend.

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The Writer

Abbey Doyle, mom to preschooler Miles and toddler Owen, and wife of Michael, is a Vincennes native and features editor at the Courier & Press. She covers a variety of topics in this blog and for the newspaper and is always looking for interesting people or issues to write about. Michael, who also writes for the Courier & Press, often contributes to this blog as well. He's a Louisiana native, stay-at-home-dad and freelance journalist. You can reach Abbey at abbey.doyle@courierpress.com or by leaving a comment on the blog.